She stopped, bothered about something, and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Her eyes narrowed, and her jawline hardened.
'Alex, diagnostics has never been my strong suit - even in grad school I stayed away from the crazies and concentrated on behavioral technology - but I'm not blind. I didn't just go about my business and let him fall apart. It wasn't as dramatic as it's coming out. The kid had a history of nonconformity, attention-seeking. I thought it was a temporary thing. That it would self-limit and he'd go on to something else.'
'He called me the night he escaped,' I said. 'Flamingly psychotic. Afterward I did the guilt thing, too. Wondering if I'd missed something. It was counterproductive. There's nothing either of us could have done. Kids go crazy, and no one can prevent it.'
She looked at me, then nodded.
'Thanks for the vote of confidence.'
'Anytime.'
She sighed.
'It's not like me to introspect, but I've been doing a lot of it lately. You know how hard I've had to fight to keep the project going. A genius-insanity scandal was the last thing I needed, but I got it in spades. The irony is that preventing bad PR was one of the reasons I kept him here longer than I should have. That and being a soft-hearted sucker.'
'What do you mean?'
'The fact that I kept him on. As I said before, just before he started to fall apart, I'd decided to ask him to leave the project. But when he started to look emotionally fragile, I delayed the decision because I was worried it might cause some kind of dramatic reaction. The project grant was up for renewal. The data were beautiful, so scientifically I was in good shape, but because of budget cuts, the political bullshit was flying hard and heavy: Why give money to geniuses when the retarded need it more? Why hadn't more blacks and Latinos been included? Wasn't the whole concept of genius elitist and racist in the first place? All I needed was Jamey freaking out and the papers getting hold of it. So I tried to wait it out, hoping it would blow over. Instead, he got worse.'
'Did you get renewed?'
'Only for one year, which is garbage, stringing me along until they decide to cut the funds. It means not being able to sink my teeth into anything of substance.'
'I'm sorry.'
'It's all right,' she said without heart. 'At least I've got some time to scrounge up alternative funds. The odds looked good until this thing blew up.' She smiled bitterly. 'The foundations don't like it when even one of your subject hacks up eight people.'
I steered the conversation back to Jamey's deterioration.
'What happened when he got worse?'
'The suspiciousness turned into paranoia. Once again it was gradual, subtle. But eventually he was claiming someone was poisoning him, railing on about the earth's being poisoned by zombies.'
'Do you remember anything more about his delusions? Phrases he used?'
'No, just that. Poisoning, zombies.'
'White zombies?'
'Maybe. It doesn't ring a bell.'
'When he talked about being poisoned, did he suspect anyone specifically?'
'He suspected everyone. Me. The other kids. His aunt and uncle. Their kids. We were all zombies, all against him. At that point I called the aunt and told her he needed help and couldn't continue on the project. It didn't seem to surprise her. She thanked me and promised to do something about it. But he showed up the next week anyway, looking really uptight, murmuring under his breath. Everyone stayed away from him. The big surprise was when he came to group - probably the first time in a year. He sat quietly through half of it and then jumped up in the middle of the discussion and started yelling. From what he said it sounded as if he were hallucinating -hearing voices, seeing grids.'
'What kinds of grids?'
'I don't know. That's the word he used. He was holding his hand in front of his eyes, squinting and screaming about bloody grids. It was frightening, Alex. I rushed out, called security, and had him taken to the med centre. I spent the rest of the session calming the other kids down. It was agreed that we'd keep the whole incident quiet so as not to hurt the project. I never saw him again and thought that was the end of it. Until now.'
'Sarita, as far as you know, did he ever take drugs?'
'No. He was a straight arrow, kind of stuffy, really. Why?'
'The grid hallucination. It's typical of an LSD trip.'
'I seriously doubt it, Alex. As I said, he was conservative, overcautious. And toward the end, when he was into health foods, obsessed with his body, it would make even less sense for him to be tripping out.'
'But if he was doping,' I said, 'you might not have known about it. It's the kind of thing kids don't talk about with adults.'
She frowned.
'I suppose so. Nevertheless, I just don't believe he was into acid or any other drug. Anyway, what difference would it make? Drugs couldn't make him psychotic'
'No. But they might have put him over the edge.'
'Even so.'
'Sarita, he went from a troubled kid to a homicidal maniac. That's a hell of a fall from grace, and my job is to make some sense out of it. I'd like to talk to the other kids on the project to see if they knew anything about it.'
'I'd rather you didn't,' she said. 'They've been through enough.'
'I'm not planning to add to the stress. On the contrary, it could make them feel better to talk about it. I counseled all of them at one time or another, so it wouldn't be like a stranger coming in.'
'Believe me,' she insisted, 'it's not worth it. They don't know anything that I haven't told you.'
'I'm sure you're right, but I'd be irresponsible if I didn't interview the people who've been his friends for the last five years.'
Chapter 11
SOUZA WAS surprised at my request.
'Doctor, all you're going to see is a large blood-spattered room, but if you think it's necessary, it can be arranged.'
'It would be helpful.'
He paused long enough for me to wonder if we'd been cut off.
'In what way, Doctor?'
'If he's ever lucid enough to talk about the murders, I want to be as knowledgeable as possible about the details.'
'Very well,' he said skeptically. 'I've never had an expert ask for it, but I'll talk to the police and have them clear you for a visit.'
'Thank you.'
'On a more conventional note, I'd like to hear about any progress you've made in your evaluation.'
I gave him a summary of my interview with Sarita Flowers. He latched immediately on to the grid hallucination and my inquiries about drug use.
'What are these grids exactly?'
'People on LSD sometimes report seeing brightly lit multicolored checkerboard designs. But Jamey spoke of seeing bloody grids, so it may have been something totally different.'
'Interesting. If he did in fact see these grids, how significant is it?'
'Probably not at all. While visual hallucinations aren't as common in schizophrenia as auditory disturbances, they do occur. And Dr. Flowers seemed fairly certain that he never took drugs.'
'But seeing this kind of thing is common in LSD users?'
'Yes, but not exclusive to them.'
'It raises possibilities, Doctor.'
'That Chancellor fed him drugs and turned him into a robot?'
' Something along those lines.'
'I wouldn't push that theory yet. The facts strongly support a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics often exhibit severe distortions of language; words acquire new, bizarre definitions. It's called verbal paraphasia. To him, bloody grids could have meant "spaghetti''.'
'I don't require scientific certainty, Doctor, only implied possibilities.'
'At this point you don't have even that. There are no other indications he took any kind of drugs. Mainwaring must have run tests when he admitted him. Did he say anything about substance abuse?'
'No,' he admitted. 'He said it was a clear-cut case of schizophrenia. That even if the boy had taken drugs, they couldn't ha
ve made him crazy.'
'That's an accurate appraisal.'
'I understand all that, Doctor. But should you come across other evidence of drug abuse - anything at all -please call me immediately.'
'I will.'
'Good. Incidentally, Dwight will be able to see you this afternoon at three.'
'Three will be fine.'
'Splendid. If you have no objection, he'd prefer to meet at Cadmus Construction. Away from prying eyes.'
'No problem.'
He gave me the corporation's Westwood address and made another offer to pay me. My first impulse was to refuse, but then I told myself I was being childish, confusing self-denial with independence. Money or no money, I was involved in the case and had come too far to turn back. I told him to send me half the retainer, and he said he'd write out a check for five thousand dollars the instant we got off the phone.
I arrived at the jail at eleven and was kept waiting in the entrance lobby for forty-five minutes without explanation. It was a hog, smoggy day, and the pollution had seeped indoors. The chairs in the room were hard and unaccommodating. I grew restless and asked about the delay. The voice from the mirrored booth claimed ignorance. Finally a female deputy arrived to take me to the High Power block. In the elevator she told me that an inmate had been knifed to death the day before.
'We have to double-check procedures, and it slows everything down.'
'Was it gang-related?'
'I'd imagine so, sir.'
A stocky black deputy named Sims took over at the entrance to the High Power block. He ushered me to a small office and searched me with a surprisingly light touch. When I got to the glass room, Jamey was already there, Sims unlocked the door, waited until I was seated before leaving. Once outside, he stayed close to the glass and, just as Sonnenschein had, kept an unobstructive but watchful eye on the proceedings.
Jamey was awake this time, straining and twisting against his shackles. His lips were pursed, the eyes above them careening like pinballs. Someone had shaved him. but it had been a slapdash job, and dark patches of stubble checkered his face. His yellow pajamas were clean but wrinkled. The pungence of stale body odor quickly filled the room, and I wondered when they'd last bathed him.
'It's me again, Jamey. Dr. Delaware.'
The eyes stopped moving, froze, then sank slowly until they settled on me. A brief flicker of clarity illuminated the irises, as if lightning had flashed within the orbital sockets, but the blue quickly filmed over and remained glassy. Not much of a response, but at least he was showing minimal awareness.
I told him I was glad to see him, and he broke out into a sweat. Beads of moisture moustached his upper lip and glossed his forehead. He closed his eyes again. As the lids fluttered shut, the cords of his neck grew taut.
'Jamey, open your eyes. Listen to what I have to say.'
The lids remained fastened tight. He shuddered, and I waited for other signs of dyskinesia. None came.
'Do you know where you are?'
Nothing.
'What day is it, Jamey?'
Silence.
'Who am I?'
No response.
I kept talking to him. He rocked and fidgeted, but unlike the movements he'd displayed during the first visit, these appeared to be voluntary. Twice he opened his eyes and stared at me cloudily, only to close them again quickly. The second time they remained shut, and he showed no further response to the sound of my voice.
Twenty minutes into the session I was ready to give up when his mouth began to work, churning, the lips stiff and extended, as if he were struggling to talk but unable to do so. The effort made him sit straighter. I leaned close. In the corner of my eye I saw a khaki blur: Sims edging closer to the glass and peering in. I ignored him, kept my attention fixed on the boy.
'What is it, Jamey?'
The skin around his lips puckered and blanched. His mouth became a black ellipse. Out came several shallow exhalations. Then a single word, muttered under his breath:
'Glass.'
'Glass?' I moved within inches of his mouth, felt the heat of his breath. 'What kind of glass?'
A strangled croak.
'Talk to me, Jamey. Come on.'
I heard the door open. Sims's voice said:
'Please move back, sir.'
'Tell me about the glass,' I persisted, trying to build a dialogue out of one whispered word.
'Sir,' said Sims forcefully, 'you're too close to the prisoner. Move back.'
I complied. Simultaneously Jamey retreated, hunching his shoulders and bowing his head; it seemed a primitive defense, as if self-reduction would make him unappealing prey.
Sims stood there, watching.
'It's all right,' I said, glancing over my shoulder. 'I'll keep my distance.'
He stared at me stolidly, waiting several seconds before returning to his post.
I turned back to Jamey.
'What did you mean by glass?'
His head remained lowered. He swung it to one side so that it rested unnaturally on his shoulder, like a bird preparing for sleep by tucking its beak in its breast.
'The night you called me you talked about a glass canyon. I thought that meant the hospital. Was it something else?'
He continued withdrawing physically, managing, despite the restraints, to curl into fetal insignificance. It was as if he were disappearing before my eyes, and I was powerless to stop it.
'Or are you talking about this room - the glass walls?'
I kept trying to reach him, but it was useless. He'd turned himself into a nearly inert bundle - pallid flesh wrapped in sweat-soaked cotton, lifeless but for the faint oscillation of his sunken chest.
He remained that way until Sims entered and announced that my time was up.
The Cadmus Building was on Wilshire between Westwood and Sepulveda, one of those high, mirrored rectangles that seem to be cropping up all over Los Angeles - narcissistic architecture for a city built on appearances. In front was a sculpture made of rusty nails welded together to create a grasping hand three storeys high. The title plate said STRIVING and assigned the blame to an Italian artist.
The lobby was a vault of black granite, air-conditioned to the point of frigidity. In the corners sat oversized dieffen-bachias and fichus trees in brushed steel planters. To the rear was a granite counter shielding a pair of security guards, one heavy-jowled and grey-haired, the other barely out of his teens. They looked me over as I checked the directory. The building was filled with attorneys and accountants. Cadmus Construction occupied the entire penthouse.
'Can I help you, sir?' asked the older one. When I told him my name, he asked for identification. After confirming it with a sotto voce phone call, he nodded, and the young one accompanied me to the elevators.
'Security always this tight?'
He shook his head. 'Just this week. Got to keep out reporters and nuts.'
He pulled a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked an express elevator that whisked me up in a matter of seconds. The door opened, and I was greeted by the corporate logo: a small red C nestled in the belly of a larger blue one. The reception area was decorated with Albers prints in chromium frames and architectural models in Plexiglas cases. A willowy brunette was waiting for me there, and she led me through a foyer that forked. To one side was the secretarial pool - rows of frozen-faced women pounding nonstop on word processors - to the other were metal double doors marked PRIVATE. The brunette opened the doors, and I followed her down a silent corridor carpeted in black. Dwight Cadmus's office was at the end of the hallway. She knocked, opened the door, and let me in.
'Dr. Delaware here to see you, Mr. Cadmus.'
'Thanks, Julie.' She left, closing the door after her.
It was an enormous room, and he was standing in the middle of it, stooped, jacketless, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, wiping his eyeglasses with a corner of his tie. The inner walls were brownish grey plaster, and from them hung architectural renderings and a painting of a cara
van of Arabs riding camels across a wind-carved dune. The outer walls were floor-to-ceiling smoked glass. I thought of the single word Jamey had whispered, speculated, and put the thoughts aside.
The glass walls were a backdrop for a low, flat desk of lacquered rosewood, its top piled high with blueprints and cardboard tubes. Perpendicular to the desk was a large wet bar; facing it, a pair of armchairs upholstered in textured black cotton. A suit jacket was draped over one of them.
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